I’ll have a listen. I don’t really know what you mean though, TP tracks rTSS so I stuck to my zones and it gets factored in. No? I’m just trying to balance HR and pace but pace seems a better indicator for Z4/5 efforts.

No they go off power as well. There’s instructions on how to manually adjust your power zones based off 80/20 methodology. You select that, under Settings/Zones in your account, and it calculates it

What do you think the benefit of going with a shorter race plan vs going up a level within the same distance plan is? I'm trying to piece together plans, and am thinking of starting the olympic level 1 plan to begin my off season, and then going to the olympic level 2 plan to get into my early season races. I hadn't really thought about doing the sprint plan as a lead in to the olympic plan. Are you already starting with the level 3 plan?

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USAT Level 1 Coach
Team Next Level
http://goteamnltri.com/

I’m not sure there’s a benefit as such other than it is going to get me to a higher level of fitness, so I’m in a better position to start the full IM plan. I’m sure a lot of people with more coaching experience will read this and shake their head; that’s cool, I did it because I did not know how to program an off-season. In my mind everything needs to build, even if gradually. I was not happy with the idea of doing only Z1/2 stuff so that’s why I’m subbing in this Oly plan as a 10-12 week build block.

I did have a bike block set up on my own with some idea of what some of the key workouts should be, but I wasn’t happy with how I’d get there and to be honest I couldn’t find much good info on that.

I’ll be taking a few weeks off towards the end of this plan, I’ll pull back the race pace stuff and probably go a bit bigger on some other workouts. Again, goal is to be at higher fitness/starting point for the next 22 weeks after that, I’m sure there are other ways to get there.

Take a listen to Ned Overend on episode 75. He goes by feel and known time on segments to guide his efforts. I think we can get too deep in the weeds sometimes when following the metrics of training and we lose the purpose of each workout in the process.
I used to drive myself mad trying to keep my HR below a certain level to stay in a recovery zone. So much so that, looking back, it did me more harm than good adhering to strict zones and levels.

Sounds good. Yeah, I'm no coach either, so just trying to figure it out on my own. I'm new to tri's and next year will be my first full year of training. I do have a background in cycling and swimming from long ago and when I got the strongest on the bike it was always the result of building a good base over the winter, with enough intensity mixed in to keep it interesting, but not so much that I got burnt out before the season started. These plans seem to tick that box pretty well. I'm now going to have to go take a look at the different plans in the book, and maybe stitch stuff together. Coming from almost zero base, I think that their level 1 plan for me to start will be perfect, and then from there I'm going to move up to level 2 in the same race distance (olympic in my case), but maybe I should look at doing sprint level 2 and feeding into olympic level 2 after that. In a bunch of the podcasts that I've listened to it seems that the first half of the plans are sort of similar with the type of "high" intensity stuff, and the second half is where the high intensity stuff becomes more specialized for the distance, so I wonder if doing the first half of an olympic plan and then switching to a half IM plan over the winter would keep building the base up. Oh well, too many variables, maybe I should just keep things simple and get my fat a** in shape.

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USAT Level 1 Coach
Team Next Level
http://goteamnltri.com/

You could look at the maintenance plans as well. Might be useful. If you want to switch at any point, make sure you do the subscription plan and they’ll switch you once a month or something.

Not sure if I answered you, I’m doing Level 3 Oly currently.

That makes perfect sense and I appreciate the input. I’m being purposefully nerdy right now about tracking everything but there’s value in ditching the HRM and just getting out there. I haven’t ridden outside in over a year so I’ll definitely be switching some of these workouts for “just riding” as well as some hills that I really need to hit - and they dont fit the plan.

I'll be following your thread, I did IM in 2013 but have been doing the odd Oly or half marathon since. I used the 80/20 Running book for my run training and it worked well so I'm going to use the Tri book for another IM next year, probably IMOZ.
I'm planning to start the IM plan then repeat the first 9 weeks rather than doing an Oly plan, seems to be more race specific and allow more base building.
My current long run is 14km and long ride 1.5 to 3 hours (indoors on my Kickr using Zwift). Swimming has been zero for the past 2 months but was 2-3x per week year round before that - injured my shoulder lifting a heavy suitcase on holiday...
I'm planning on doing nearly all my swimming in the ocean this year as a change and sticking to Zwift for most of my riding because it's easy to fit round work and it's safe. Last IM I was constantly having near misses or being abused on the road.
I've got a treadmill next to my bike for interval runs and Noosa National park 5 minutes away for ocean swimming and trail running.
Good luck with the training, David
(maybe see you on Zwift)

Sounds like you are set up well. Kept us posted on how it goes. I think more people are doing the majority of their riding indoors for either safety or specificity - for me it’s both, I did my first ride outdoors in a very long time and I find it’s a process to adjust my effort to keep the workout where it needs to be. That’s just me I’m sure, I’ve got pretty bad skillz ;)

Week 2:
TSS 289, planned 409

ATL/CTL/TSB: 41/29/-11

Not super happy with this week. Still no swims, which accounts for some missing TSS, but due to sickness/bad guacamole I missed a few planned workouts. I’m still adjusting to sitting in the saddle for >90 minutes and my sit bones are killing me.

Workouts were great, a few Z4/Z1 interval sessions on both bike and run and I love these. I would rather do 10 x 1 min @ 280w with 2 min recovery than sit doing steady state Z2 aerobic workout for the same time period. I really struggle with easy aerobic stuff, just out of boredom and squirming around. Also I can’t get comfortable yet on this saddle so that’s part of it.

I also rode for the first time outside this week with a PM on my bike, which was awesome. I got the Red Rock hills in vegas and found that Instead of trying to go hard, I could go as easy as possible up the hard grades and really manage my effort. Counterintuitive for me but awesome.